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"Worst Week in Washington": And the winner is...

The top ranking Republican in the Senate not only had to watch as his chosen candidate to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R) got waxed by opthamalogist Rand Paul in the primary on Tuesday but then grin and bear it as Paul inexplicably tried to re-litigate elements of the Civil Right Act.

...you will notice I try to link to, or quote from, articles from mainstream writers/analysts like Eugene Robinson, Frank Rich, E.J. Dionne, Colbert King, and Salon's Joan Walsh to make clear that my concerns about the recent drift of today's GOP, particularly the so-called Tea Party wing (which many in the media have characterized as a racist proxy agenda), are shared by a MUCH broader community.

Look, if my facts are wrong, feel free to call me out on them. However, frankly, my information is only upsetting because the media has suppressed much/most of it. Rand Paul "views" were no more of a secret to the media before the Maddow interview than George Allen's were pre-Macaca. [We are at ground zero and intersect sometimes with PostWorld and we know that to be true.] Anyone familiar with the Pauls' history know their "views" go back literally decades.

When the candidacy of some bigoted fool initiates a public "debate" over whether the law should ban discrimination in public accommodations, see John Stossel's recent statements, or whether buildings must be accessible by the disabled, that's dangerous for America. Until this week, such matters were considered long ago settled and beyond civilized debate. Sadly, not anymore.

If my calling that out -- as others like Robinson, Rich, et al. have -- bothers you or 37 or mooned/zouk, well...tough.

BTW, I support a TWO party system -- optimally a Colin Powell/Chuck Hagel-led GOP engaged in constructive debate with the BHO Administration on the issues of the day. But that's not what we have now: instead it's spitting on Congressman Cleaver, waving n-word signs, Arizona racial profiling laws, domestic terrorism, and threats to repeal the Civil Rights Act.

Broadway, there are lots of other sticks you can beat the Republicans with. You're such a great writer and a really progressive thinker. I enjoy reading your posts, but even I would like it if you would back-off from calling everybody in the GOP a racist. It is too easy a label to throw around. Just saying.

After the media had built him up as a "quasi-libertarian" and he went ahead and won an upset victory in the GOP primary he was, for a day at least, the king of the GOP, the toast of the town.

Then Robert Siegel of NPR and later Dr. Rachel Maddow -- by asking him a couple of simple questions about his views on civil rights -- exposed him as a loathsome teabagging segregationist fool.
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Given the Fix's avoidance of other huge stories such as the passage of the Arizona racial profiling law, and the tea baggers' hate rally on Capitol Hill (which started the public's negative perception of those socios), I am shocked he mentioned the Rand controversy at all. (Could it be Post management gave him a nudge?) Drudge (who, according to a Columbia Journalism Reviwe article, Fix "emulates") avoided the Rand racist meltown completely, covering only Rand's later "response" to the controversy.

Many, including Howie Kurtz of the Post recently, have asked why the MSM kept the public in the dark about Rand's racism and lunacy (see his "amero" conspiracy). No research was required: all the media had to do was Google "Rand Paul" and "racist."

Chris,
You didn't have the cojones to pick the obvious candidate: Rand Paul.

In the midst of his great victory celebration he sank himself within 24 hours. On multiple venues he shared his true beliefs and an alarmed press suddenly switched from the meme: "the tea bags are taking over the nation" - to: we don't know anything about this great champion. He took with him a lot of potential tea party and libertarian momentum.

How could the one that got winged with a ricochet be the one chosen? McConnell has been known to say anything at any time if it suits his political purpose. He will ride Rand Paul like a rented mule if he makes it through the next week and if not he will move on to the next Republican candidate on the list. Rand Paul could, in contrast, be toast not getting to take his country back from anyone.

Not only is Rachel an idiot, but only about three people watch her show. Have you checked the MSNBC/CNN ratings lately?
Campbell Brown just resigned because no one watches her. Too bad everyone missed the Rand Paul interview. They were all watching Hannity. Tough luck.

noa: get a load of this re the Paul MTP cancellation you alerted us to.

"His campaign told the show he's "exhausted." Paul agreed to do the show on Wednesday before backing out late Friday afternoon.

Fischer said Paul is only the third major guest in 62 years to have canceled on the show. The other two were Louis Farrakhan (1996) and Saudi Prince Bandar (2003)."
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In cancelling, Rand can't be happy to be in the same company as two, er, er, well, you know. :)

BTW, Rachel apparently lit a fire under some of the TV "journalists." She is getting a lot of praise for doing what they don't, i.e., asking relevant questions, asking precise followups, and sticking with the line of questioning until the guest answers HER question, most recently in the Racist Randy interview. Can you imagine David Gregory elicting the responses from Rand that Dr. Maddow got? No way. Rachel needs to chair MTP.

He got less than the second place Dem in the primary; what's more there are more registered Dems than GOPers in Ky. Rasmussen will probably say differently real soon, but the raw numbers don't lie. Rand will soon be free to go back home and think about how to resegregate restaurants, block access for disabled Americans, deny the occurrence of certain historical events between 1939 and 1945 in Germany, and tamp down "Amero" conspiracies. White-on, Rand.

Rand is yet another fastball down the middle for BHO and his party. They must knock it out of the park.

It'll be interesting to see whether the Dems will, as many have urged them to do, make Rand the face of the GOP and, in ads and speeches, run against his numerous racist and idiotic positions (Google "Rand Paul" and "amero" conspiracy, for instance), none of which the press had talked about up to now. Now we find out Rand's been against about every government program since the New Deal on the basis of "libertarianism." LOL.

From the AOL News piece "Does Racism Run in the Family" about Ron and Rand Paul's history of bigotry:

"For the New Republic piece, reporter James Kirchick pored over newsletters Ron Paul had put out monthly beginning in 1978, which include "Ron Paul's Freedom Report," "Ron Paul Political Report" and "The Ron Paul Survival Report." They yielded many freighted passages.

From the June 1992 issue of Ron Paul Political Report, which appeared after the Los Angeles riots: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began." A newsletter from the previous year offered this headline for a report on racial disturbances in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood: "Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo." The newsletters also belittled Martin Luther King Jr. -- "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day" -- and praised David Duke."

Hard to see the GOP winning back the House or Senate (as the Fix roots for) by relitigating whether outlawing segregated hotels and restaurants was a good idea, but the GOP has appeared to double-down with Rand Paul, king of the baggers, and n-word sign-carrying Dale Robertson, the founder of the baggers.

If they are going with Rand and Dale as their leadership, enjoy your extinction, GOP. Stand over there with the Whig Party (no reference to Rand's alleged hair system intended).

I thonk I saw something about stormfront's leader making a contribution to Rand's campaign. Would make sense. Rand and his Dad are icons in the organized hate community, but the MSM didn't plan to tell us that.

@drindl: Rushdoony was a lot worse than that, the founder of Christian Reconstructionism, advocate of returning to Old Testament morality with public stonings of adulterers and gays and that's just for starters. The Reconstructionists count among their supporters and surprising number of Republican Senators and Representatives but even those yahoos are careful not to go public with it. "The Handmaid's Tale" is based on a reconstructionist vision of society. Stunningly grim stuff. chalcedon. org IIRC.

@drindl: Rushdoony was a lot worse than that, the founder of Christian Reconstructionism, advocate of returning to Old Testament morality with public stonings of adulterers and gays and that's just for starters. The Reconstructionists count among their supporters and surprising number of Republican Senators and Representatives but even those yahoos are careful not to go public with it. "The Handmaid's Tale" is based on a reconstructionist vision of society. Stunningly grim stuff. chalcedon. org IIRC.

McConnell is a worthy Worst Week winner. Now that I think about it he does have some long-term misery in store, too. In addition to his short-term setback and having to now smile at Rand Paul through gritted teeth, Jim Bunning loathes him and the next senator from Kentucky will very likely now be a Democrat. It sucks to be him, for sure.

And my two nominees, Snowe and Collins, aren't behaving much like they care about what happened to their party in Maine, casting two "in your face, Tea Party" votes in favor of financial reform.

(Picture every highly-organized taskmaster first-grade teacher you've ever seen, distill their essence, and you have Snowe and Collins, two ladies who do not tolerate such nonsense.)

I'm thinking next week's nominations may include at least one Democrat associated with the Hawaii special Congressional election.

Rand Paul is also a frequent featured speaker at Constitution Party events.

The founder, Rousas J. Rushdoony, was a Holocaust denier, a racist, a creationist, and an advocate for slavery who claimed that African-American slaves were lucky.

As Rushdoony wrote in Politics of Guilt and Pity:

The white man is being systematically indoctrinated into believing that he is guilty of enslaving and abusing the Negro. Granted that some Negroes were mistreated as slaves, the fact still remains that nowhere in all history or in the world today has the Negro been better off. The life expectancy of the Negro increased when he was transported to America. He was not taken from freedom into slavery, but from a vicious slavery to degenerate chiefs to a generally benevolent slavery in the United States. There is not the slightest evidence that any American Negro had ever lived in a "free society" in Africa; even the idea did not exist in Africa. The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro..."

It's only a smear if what you say is untrue. Rand Paul is against federal government regulation of private activities. That follows, that he is against the government action on things like discrimination. Is the repeal argument a stretch from saying he likely would not have supported it if he was in the Senate - no - but the next time a question of should government intervene to help a minority or vulnerable part of society, his answer will be no.

Now of course his views on reducing government intervention in the private marketplace do not extend to reducing Medicare payments for doctors, that's different.

Rand Paul is too young to remember that the issues he is raising about the constitutional status of the civil rights acts were all arguments made by the Jim Crow south in an attempt to defeat those laws back in the sixties. To my older ear these arguments sound like code words for racism, and I'm sure many others will feel the same.

May 21 - JPMorgan Chase Closing Frederick Office-600 Jobs Will Be Lost

Let's see if this is just a coincidence, or the start of a wave. Among other new shackles, Congress is trying to stop banks from making "risky" investments. But there is a reason banks take on "risky" investments. It's because higher risk investments are more profitable than low-risk investments. Under the new regulations, banks will be making less money, and they won't be able to keep on as many people.

And frankly, I trust people who are in business to make money to better be able to decide what risks are worth taking than Government bureaucrats; like the ones who decided that giving out mortgages to people who were financially irresponsible was good public policy. (Fannie and Freddy, by the way, are exempted from the "reform" bill.)

But, hey, as long as Chairman Zero can claim a win, who cares how many peons get laid off. Like the 2,500 people who lost their jobs when Student Loans were nationalized.